


Practicality and Passion Meet

by saavik13



Category: Jane Eyre - All Media Types
Genre: AU Jane stays, F/M, First Time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-16 00:51:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5806891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saavik13/pseuds/saavik13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jane had gotten used to dreaming of color, of thinking of a future beyond gray and black.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Practicality and Passion Meet

It is not often that practicality and passion meet, and Jane felt as if she was floating outside herself as she stared at him. 

“Stay with me, Jane. I beg of you.”

Stay? Stay and be what? His whore? His mistress? The laughing stock of the village and the manor house? They all knew, or guessed, and yet they continued to allow this fallacy, this lunacy… they would have let her go to his bed thinking herself wedded before God and country… Her anger blinded her and without her own conscious thought her hand flashed out and struck his cheek. He looked at her, his large eyes expressive and sorrowful, and he hung his head.

Jane’s breath heaved from her and despite her resolve to show not a hint of the emotions that tore her asunder, and she sunk to the floor, great sobs of anguish pulled from her only to catch in her throat. She couldn’t let him see… she couldn’t let him know... “How could you, Edward?” She whispered finally, her voice hoarse as she bit back tears, and yes, screams.

“I wanted you, Jane. Something…something pure in all this hell.” He confessed, lowering himself to the floor opposite her, conveniently blocking the door. Jane could see a hint of skirt outside and knew the housekeeper was poised just around the corner listening to every word and somehow that made her bold.

“So you would have taken my purity and defiled it? Then what would you have been left with, Sir? What could I have offered you then, in the lie you would have built for us?”

Edward’s eyes closed painfully. “I did not wish to build a lie, Jane. Never that. I love you, I will always love you.”

“Did you whisper such to her?” Jane’s anger won out again and the words were harsh and in no small part bitter. “Could I expect the same _kind_ treatment were you to tire of me? Were you to find me too sullen or cold for your liking, how would you abandon me with your ego intact?”

“Jane,” He moved forward quickly as if to embrace her and Jane held up one hand to stay his movement.

A cold logic was descending on her and she let it come, the quick hard mantle of survival bubbling up in her that she had hoped to never feel again. She’d conformed at Lowood out of the need to survive the harshness, suppressed herself to keep from punishment and starvation. Here, here she had finally started to uncoil some small part of herself that had retracted into hiding instead of death, and now that tiny spark of independence was again in jeopardy. But this time she was not a powerless child, and this time she knew that while limited, she did have a small precious handful of options before her. 

“If I stay, what would you ask of me?” Jane inquired coldly. “What duties would I preform, _Sir?_ Would I be a harlot in your bed and nurse maid to your bastard children? Is that what you ask of me? To stay and be scorned by staff and village? Loved only by you in the secret hours of the night?” Jane stood up shakily and smoothed down her dress. He stayed where he was on her floor, his shock at her bluntness apparent in the wideness of his eyes and she glared down at him. “What can you offer me now, Sir, that would compensate me for my soul and my dignity?”

“Love. I can love you, Jane. Every hour of every day.” He pleaded, dark eyes finally rising to look at her. “It would not be secret, or hidden. Who could blame us, knowing the truth? Would your God even condemn us?”

“I do not presume to know the mind of God.” Jane answered swiftly. “But I know the mind of man and blame me they would. I would be the temptress, the harlot, come to steel a husband from his wife in her long distress. You may shield me from scorn and ridicule with your presence, keep the worst of the vicious voices at bay. But what if you were to befall some accident? What if I was left alone and shamed? How could I then make my way in the world? Without reputation or reference, adrift to whatever tender or villainous mercies may be bestowed on a fallen woman? I am no Paris dancer, Sir. I have no line of besotted suitors on which to fall back on should you desert me. I have only these two hands and what intellect God has given me.”

“I can make it so you never want, Jane. Even should I die within the hour that is settled.” Edward argued, crawling to her. “I made arrangements some time ago. Should I die, Thornfield is yours and enough of an income for you and for Adele that neither should ever have want or need. Even if you leave me this moment it is still arranged. I would never have risked your future with this venture.”

Jane’s eyes closed painfully. “I am to be bought then. What other option have I?”

“Jane?”

“I am no fool, sir.” She whispered, sinking to sit on the edge of her bed, her fingers curling painfully in what would have been her wedding dress. “What life I would have made as a governess would have been enough. I would have had shelter and food and purpose. I would have worked hard and been content. Now, now you have dangled the world before me, and ripped it away as cruelly as any schoolyard bully. I dreamed because of you, sir. I allowed myself to conceive of a future in colors other than grey.” She looked up and caught his eye, all her pain for once showing naked in her expression. “In so allowing myself I find I have been condemned. I cannot return to merely being content with drudgery and servitude. You promised me the world, Sir, and I dreamed of it.”

“And you shall have it, Jane. I will serve you the world as daily fair until you are full of it.” He promised, moving closer to her, his hands taking hers where they rested on her knee. 

“At the cost of my soul?” She whispered. “Once I believed I was lost, as vile a creature as my aunt screamed at me I was. Lowood did many things, Edward, but it at least convinced me that I was not horrid – I was not predestined to hell and fire. They tried to beat it into us, that we were, but I knew the truth, that _they_ were, that there was evil in the world so much greater than the crimes of a little girl and if I did no wrong, if the only pain I caused others was by my birth alone – a fact to which I had no control and can not possibly hold blame – than I could perhaps see a fate other than that promised. Now, now I see my aunt was correct. You have bought me, sir, for the price of color.”

“Jane,” he raised her trembling hand to his reddened check and pressed it there. “Jane, you are not condemned. And if it is color you desire I will take you to the spice markets of India, to the see the orient and the silk fresh died. Whatever exotic wonder you wish, and no one need know that you lack the legal title for the status you hold in my heart.”

“It is not the legality of our arrangement that concerns me most, I am ashamed to admit.” Jane spoke tiredly, raising her free hand to rub uselessly at her eyes. “Oh Edward, had you told me the truth, if only you would have confided.”

“Can you not forgive me? I could not bare the thought of losing you.”

“Your games almost lost me once, you foolish man. Now this deceit.” Jane lowered her hand and gazed down at him in pity. “You ask me to set aside all that I am for you, all I believe, and offer up only what your money can buy as a sign of your devotion. Edward, I want truth from you – truth and only that. I will not be lied to again, or defiled and shamed though I may be I will leave you, no matter if we are in England or the Congo. I will flee from your side and never return. I may become your whore but I shall never again be your fool.”

“I promise, oh Jane I swear I shall keep you as my closest confidant, you will know all of my private thoughts. And never, never call yourself that word again, for no matter our circumstances you are the very essence of a pure heart and the noblest creature to have ever walked the earth.” He swore and rose to encircle her with his arms. His kiss when it came was eager and exuberant.

Jane allowed it until the drowning feeling in her stomach moved to close her throat and she pushed against him, freeing herself and turning away. Tears again flowed down her cheeks. “Edward, please.” She asked softly. “I need to,” she trailed off as the word that floated to her mind made her cringe. 

“What do you need, Jane?” He asked gently, his hand soft on her waist. 

 

“I need to grieve.” She admitted, her face reflecting eerily in the rippled glass of the window pane. She watched him nod behind her.

“I understand.” He kissed her hair and his large hands squeezed her once before withdrawing. “I will leave you to your thoughts, Jane. But I will not be far.” His face darkened. “And I think it best if I return my _wife_ ” he said the title bitterly, “to her brother. He is so concerned for her safety and happiness, I shall put him in charge of it.”

“Make sure he has the funds.” Jane responded in a quiet voice. “At least then he cannot say you have entirely abandoned her. It is, after all, English tradition to at least fund the exile.”

He didn’t respond but she could see in his reflection how her words made him slump even further. “I shall stay, Edward.” She took a steading breath. “But I do not know if I can forgive you, or how long it shall take for me to overcome this…this hollowness that has settled in my soul.”

“Than I will remain steadfast, my Jane, and pray that someday you can understand and forgive.” He whispered back before turning and leaving her standing there, the fading sun throwing orange shadows across her wedding gown.

Hours later she watched as the carriage pulled away, the windows hastily bared shut with strips of wood nailed fast. She could hear the woman’s screams even this far from the road, and it drove a cold chill even further into her bones. What sort of madness took a person to such depths of hate, Jane wondered, watching with a sick sort of pity as pale hands reached through the slates of wood to claw at empty air as threats against all those in the house were hurled in viscous animal tones. Soon the carriage was too far to make out in the lessening light of evening, but Jane continued to watch the place where it disappeared from her sight until the stars emerged. 

Someone brought her a dinner tray. She heard them come in, the clank of china as it was set down, but she did not move from her seat at the window. Mrs. Fairfax took the dress away at some point – likely knowing how painful it was to look upon, but she wisely did not seek conversation. The only creature brave enough to invade her silent mourning was Pilot. The dog seemed to know her mood, and laid quiet at her feet, his weight a warm comfort against her leg, the gray of her gown mixing with the darkness of his fur like shadow. 

Eventually she stood and lite a candle, her hands moving towards her paper and pencil and then… then things flew from her mind to her fingers and to the paper. Horrid images, flames and death and pain. Pages and pages. She drew as if her very life depended on it. As her pencil and chalk moved, her heart could finally rest and Jane let out all she could onto her only lifelong friend. Evening turned to day and the dinner try was replaced, the food still untouched. Eventually, just as the evening moon started to rise once more outside the window, she ran out of paper. When she looked down, it was to find her floor and bed covered in sheet after sheet of the dark and sorry art – the face of her would be lover, his wife, the staff, and herself lurching out of the lurid images to mock her. 

She noticed with an odd detachment that Edward had taken a spot on the floor next to the open door and was looking at her drawings, his shirt half undone and his face haunted. When he realized she’d risen from her drawing desk he looked up at her, a particularly violent image in one hand, and she shook her head before he could speak. 

She walked past him and down the stairs to the first floor, and out to the wilds. Pilot followed her like a silent shadow. She walked until she could no longer put one foot in front of the other and then she sat. The stone was cold, the grass wet, and she’d left the house without a cape or shawl. A light mist was falling and she let it dampen her hair, her dress, her coal covered fingers making a black mud that mixed with Pilot’s hair as she petted him. The moon was full and high casting an eerie light over the endless wilderness before her and somehow, against logic, she pulled strength from it.

Edward was probably worried she’d lost her mind – she thought absently. But she didn’t turn around to see if he’d followed. She didn’t have the strength to deal with his guilt or his apologies. She was so tired.

It was nearing midnight when she finally made her way back up to the house. Mrs. Fairfax tried to stop her as she ascended the stairs, trailing a good deal of mud and leaves behind her, but Jane brushed past. She did not bother to knock when she reached his chamber, but pushed the door open and went in. Pilot barked happily at seeing his master, going directly to his bowl of food by the fire and settling down on the rug. 

Edward looked nearly as done in as she imagined she herself looked. But his eyes showed his relief that she’d returned. “Jane…”

She shook her head again to silence him, but let him approach her. He cautiously reached to embrace her and she let him. She had no strength to stop the tears this time, and she let them fall on his shoulder as he held her upright, her fatigue and hunger getting the better of her. She had no idea how long he held her upright before the heat from the fire and his warmth made her fall asleep standing up. She could vaguely recall his yelling for Mrs. Fairfax, and the feel of her wizened fingers undoing the catches on her soaking wet dress. She recognized the soft cotton of her nightdress and it was not until she was soundly in bed she realized it was not her bed she’d been brought to. She tried to protest but strong arms reached around her from behind and she was drawn up tightly to a warm body. “To sleep, Jane. Only sleep, I promise you.” Edward’s voice whispered. “You are chilled to the bone, my love, and I’ve a strong fire and thicker blankets than your solitary room affords.”

There was logic in his argument, she knew, her mind remembering the nights she’d crawled into bed with dear Helen for warmth. Her poor lost Helen… she fell back asleep crying even harder. 

She was alone the next morning except for Pilot who had somehow in the night migrated to the foot of the bed. When he sensed her awake he crawled up it, a soft plaintive whine issuing from him that made her hand reach out involuntarily to comfort him. His soft fur calmed her and when she finally drew strength to rise he followed her down the hall to her old rooms as if he could tell she should not be alone.

Her dresses had almost all been packed for what should have been her wedding tour of the continent and Mrs. Fairfax had not had the trunks returned. Likely they had already been sent off before the mockery of a wedding and would be far from her reach for some time. They contained mostly the new items that had been commissioned in the heady days after the announcement of their engagement. Pretty things in colors that Jane had never thought she could be allowed to wear. Lavender and rose, a brilliant blue that seemed to have a life of it’s own, a cream and brown lace that recalled all the frivolity that had been denied her over the course of her life. All that was left, however, were the dull greys and blacks that had been her ornament as governess, pushed to the very back of the old wardrobe and meant to be forgotten. Her grey dress was likely ruined from her evening adventure, or at the very least still drying in the kitchens, so she chose instead the black. Her only two dresses, the only things in the world that she owned by right.

The stiff black of her dress was like armor as she put it on. Each lace sliding into place reaffirmed her and by the time she’d brushed the curl from her hair and pined it tight she felt more of herself than she had since the revelation.

Choices – she still had them before her. She’d said she’d stay, and she was good on her word. Practicality if nothing else made that choice the only one that held any hope of comfort in her future. Thornfield had been a merciful place to find employment, for all its secrets. To go out to find another position, without reference to account for her time between Lowood and the present would mean only the desperate or despicable would hire her and that was a fate she did not wish to undertake. At least here she was known. At least here she knew she was physically safe. No, the true choice was in how to proceed with that decision.

She could in time forgive him, although she knew not how long that process would take. But she could never forget the betrayal he done to her, that would be beyond the capabilities of any mortal, so grievous the blow. Nor could she hate him for it, no matter how a wicked part of her wished she could. His professions of love, so desperately given, seemed unreal – had since his first breath of them in the garden what felt like a lifetime ago. Yet, Jane could not deny the strength of them, the truth of them she saw in his eyes. And yet, how could she allow them to be made from a man that was tied to another before God? 

There could be an annulment, she supposed. Madness was enough to dissolve a marriage if consent and understanding could be shown lacking. That could take years, however, and Mr. Rochester had never been a patient man. In all honesty she did not feel terribly patient herself, not these days, when the world seemed to be in a constant of flux and she herself seemed to vibrate internally like a hammered string on the piano, ringing out perpetual and low in a keening desperation. She knew she appeared calm, a fallacy she’d developed as a child and held onto into adulthood, a protection that kept her private thoughts from the ever critical eye of her superiors. But inside she had never felt as far from it as she did now. Like the descriptions of lava from the far off volcanoes, or like the ever churning sea, she was a torment of thought and emotion too violent and unmannered to ever approach calm. 

What other choice did she have but to go on as if she were calm? What other choice but to hide and bury her inner conflict from all those that would comment and judge upon it? If this was to be her life, one of perpetual wickedness and sin, then she must learn to hide away her true self from the judgment and derision of all who looked upon her as she had learned so long ago to deal with the hatred and ire of her relatives and the horrible unreasoned dislike of the headmaster. If she showed even a sliver of the affect they had upon her their torments would increase a hundred fold, and so, now, with this choice laid out before her she would of necessity have to steel herself once again to face a world that rejected her.

The kitchen was quiet when she made her way down the stairs. The others were unsure what to say to her as she wandered into their midst but soon enough food was placed before her and in the warmth provided by the large kitchen fire she sat and ate, Pilot as ever attentive at her side. With food once again fortifying her, Jane took stock of the household.

The cook and maid were both nearer her age than Mrs. Fairfax and both seemed to look on her more with pity than condemnation. For her part, Mrs. Fairfax seemed distant if not condemning, as if she too was weighted down with events that had transpired. In all it was more of a warmth of reception than she’d feared and Jane took a great deal of relief from the knowledge that despite the entire household mostly likely believing her already a defiled woman they were treating her with nothing worse than a nervous distance. 

“Miss?” the young maid enquired softly when the others had returned to their work.

“Yes Mary?” Jane answered, her voice sounding foreign and strained to her ears.

“We won’t think less of you, miss, if you stay.” The maid blushed and looked away. “Those of us girls without families, miss, we take what work we can and try to survive. Others might judge, miss. But not us in the house. We know you, miss, and we know the Master and this… this entire thing isn’t right miss, but it certainly wasn’t your doing. You have to make the best of it you can, like any of us would, and… well… I never thought God was one to judge too harshly what a woman does to keep a roof o’er her and the like. No matter what those fancy preachers say with their inherited monies and their fancy churches. They never been hungry or cold or desperate.” Mary grimaced. “I knew when I saw you the first time you had, miss. Once you feel the pinch o’ hunger it never quite leaves the eyes. I’d do far worse than stay with a man I loved to keep away from it. Far worse.” Mary said the last part in a whisper and Jane’s heart broke a little wondering what horrid past the young maid came from. 

Jane smiled grimly and put a thankful hand on the young girl’s arm. “Thank you, Mary. It is a comfort to know that at least some will understand. It… it is not an easy choice. And… it...” Jane trialed off, unsure how to complete her thought but the girl seemed to understand never the less.

“I imagine not, miss.” The maid replied softly. “I imagine not.”

 

 

Mr. Rochester was staring unseeingly at his study wall when she found him. Pilot once again barked and jumped in greeting and his hand went to pet the creature’s ears more from habit than from thought. Jane moved to sit next to him on the settee and it was only then that he turned to look at her.

“I have reached several conclusions.” Jane spoke with a firmness that felt foreign to her yet more in tune with her mood than she could ever remembering being in his presence. “I have said I would stay and I will but the nature of my remaining has been an unspoken weight between us.”

“I can ask no more of you than you can give, Jane.” Mr. Rochester looked despondent as he spoke, his shoulders slumped and defeated. “I cannot bare the thought of life without you, and yet I am equally unable to imagine life with you by my side and not… not…”

“Yours in body?” Jane spoke bluntly. “I imagine that was a large motivating factor in your choice to persist in your charade.”

He winced but she ignored that in favor of finishing what she had come here to do.

“You have woken something in me that life had tried to crush.” Jane took a shaky breath. “I cannot return that part of me to the box it had been contained in, as if you played the part of Pandora, you have unleashed me, Sir, and no amount of regret can undo that deed. But I do not think you were ready for the true implications of it. You see in me what you wish to see and very little of what I am.” She turned to look at him, holding his gaze. “If I allow this, if I consent to live in sin within your household, if I let loose this last part of me that I hold in check, what will you think of me? You say you wish something pure, sir, to have that for yourself. But what if my nature is anathema to that purity? What if once loosed that too builds itself to heights you have not thought me capable? I’ve a brain, Sir. And passions all my own. That I hold mastery over them is by a thin thread that you continually dance upon. I cannot continue as we were, but I fear you will not like what you find if we should continue.”

He was quiet for a long moment, studying her with an intensity he rarely showed so openly. “Jane, I see in you such untapped potential. Your mind is ever fascinating to me and I wish that the world did not constrict your gender to such domestic monotony that it can find no suitable outlet. Your gifts are so apparent, even stifled as they have been, that I am continually astounded. The world has tried to force you to conform to its hideous specifications and yet you defy it. At every turn you twist and evade it, molding yourself into whatever cracks and hiding places you must to retain some of your spirit, your self. I do not know the depths of you, I cannot. You hide them from me, from yourself, continuously -else the weight of the world crush it. But I sense the deep vastness of your soul, Jane. I sense how it yearns and struggles to break free and I wish nothing more than to aid it. Like a trapped bird beating it’s wings bloody against the walls of it’s cage, I can see your soul frantic to defy the conventionality you have been forced to endure. 

“Let me provide some measure of that freedom, Jane. I will not judge you for it, rather I will love you more for it. I care not for the restrictions society places on us, I have no need of their approval or their good graces.”

Jane closed her eyes. “And if I told you I read Wollstonecraft and thought her brilliant? That I devoured your library long before you returned to Thornfield, devoured like a starving man a Christmas feast? What would you think, Sir, if you knew I spent more of my wages on books and lecture notes than I saved because I could not bear to go another day without something new to immerse myself in? What if I confessed that I relish in discovering the forbidden, reading ravenously of all that titles warned against by the sensible and devout? What will you then think of me and my trapped mind? I have hidden so much of myself from you, as you hid your own secrets, and yet I was unsure until this moment if I would ever reveal them to you. If it could ever be wise to do so.”

When she opened her eyes he was smiling at her, an amused and joyous look in his eyes. “I would tell you that I too think Wollstonecraft brilliant and ask if you had read the fantastical story her daughter has written. I would take you to hear her speak and read aloud the work of that glorious husband that she still mourns for. I would take you to meet the great intellectuals that hide in plain sight all over this country and on the continent, and I would let you see that you are not alone my Jane in yearning for more than you are told is proper.”

She could not help the tears in her eyes. “You do not think me mad or unwomanly for wanting to know the world around me? You do not find it unseemly that I quest for knowledge the way others yearn for motherhood and lace frocks?”

He laughed then and pulled her close. “Oh Jane, I find you even more delightful for it. How could you think I would condemn you for such things? You have been too sheltered here in this dreary house and that horrid school. The world is slowly changing my Jane, and if you wish to be part of it than you shall be my dear one. To hell with all else that troubles us, this I can give you without reservation.”

Jane let him embrace her, finding comfort against her will in his arms but when he turned to kiss her she dipped her head and the tears flowed anew.

“Jane?”

“I am so frightened.” She confessed softly, muffling her face in his coat. “I am frightened of what you make me feel, of what I want from you, things I have no frame of reference for, no words to describe. I fear you will be unsatisfied with me, or that I am somehow too much or too little and…”

His hand moved to hold her head in place and he pulled her tightly against him. “Oh Jane, my wonderful Jane. You poor frightened thing this has all been so horrible for you, I know. I am a brute asking of you what I am, a selfish unfeeling brute. I know it and yet I cannot help my desire for you.” He pulled back and lifted her face towards his. “But I promise you, if you consent to me I will not abandon you or cast you aside. I assure you, Jane, that no matter what that monstrous place has taught you of the desires you feel they are natural and I will not shirk from them, or you. I want that brilliant mind of yours unleashed as surely as the great passion I can see hidden in your eyes and buried in your drawings.”

“I feel as though I will burst at times.” Jane confessed softly. “As if I am vibrating in place, a whirlwind contained within me that unleashed will devastate.”

“I will be here, Jane, to help you weather it.” His eyes gentled. “I will teach you to glorify in it and I promise you it will not be a shameful thing, not between us. You were meant to shine so brightly my love, I beg you to let me help you uncover that light.”

“I was frightened before.” Jane whispered. “At the idea of our wedding night.” She blushed and tried to look away but his fingers tilted her head back and she held his gaze with reluctant determination. “But I thought as long as I trusted in God and turned myself over to you as my husband I could not be too sinful. Now I… now I fear that my sinful thoughts will only multiply and devour us both.”

“I cannot imagine that you, in your innocence, have any more powerful sinful thoughts than I.” His lips turned in a delighted smirk. “Oh Jane, the things I’ve wanted to do to you ever since that night you woke me, your shift so thin and glowing in the darkness, the threat to my life seemed so unimportant next to the trembling in your body. I’ve wanted you in all honestly since I saw you on the road, a fairy in the dusk and mist, but I could not stop myself from imagining you undone under me since the night of the fire, try as I did. Oh Jane, please, let me ease your fears the only way they can be.”

“What if I do not care for it?” Jane whispered, her blush crimson at his words. “What if I find I do?”

He smiled and gently kissed her forehead. “You must tell me what you like, and what you do not, and what that mind of yours conjures when you let it turn to such things. I want to hear your desires, Jane. I want to meet and exceed them. I want to turn you into a wanton creature with my hands and my mouth and hear you scream out for me in the night. I want to be wicked with you Jane Eyre, wicked and sinful and unashamed… does that frighten you?”

In truth it did, for it sent a jolt towards a part of her she’d been taught to fear and Jane felt her heart hammer so hard in her chest she was sure he could feel it where it was pressed against him. There was a warm hollowness at her center, a craving she knew not how to meet, and a disturbing flutter that caused her to draw her legs together in an attempt to relieve it. He noted her movement and his eyes darkened. 

“Do you feel something, my Jane? Some stirring at my words?” he asked in her ear, pulling her into his lap. She could only nod at that, her shamed and redden face buried again in his shoulder. He took her trembling hand in his and lowered it between them to press against him, his breaches rough against her palm. “Do you feel that, Jane? That is my eagerness for you. Your confessions have done this to me, Jane, my desire for you manifests at your words. I am not repulsed by them.” He left her hand there and she could not help but extend her fingers questioningly along the hardness she felt there.

He hissed and his hips raised slightly as she did so. She tried to jerk her hand away but his returned to press it even more urgently against him. “Good Jane,” he assured her. “You have the right to touch me, my love. You have the right to know every part of me.”

Jane bit her lip and raised her head enough to look at him. “But I was told to… to be still.” She whispered, the conversation Mrs. Fairfax and the minister’s wife had had with her on the eve of the wedding returning and making her feel again as if she was somehow flawed. “They said I should not appear … eager, or else you would think me….” She blushed and bit her lip, tears again prickling at her eyes. “Oh Edward what is wrong with me?”

“Nothing.” He kissed her urgently. “Oh nothing my Jane. You are passion itself and that is a most miraculous and wonderful thing. I want you eager my love. I want you to uncurl that part of you that I sense is hiding in fear, I want you unbridled. It will get easier, my Jane, I promise. Toss out whatever nonsense they foisted on you. I will teach you pleasure, my darling. I will.”

He kissed her harder then, shifting to place himself over her, trapping her against the back of the settee and she found that the change in their arrangement made her head swim. Her hand was still on his hardness and he pressed himself against it with an urgency that she could not deny. Her small fingers tested out the edges of him through the rough fabric, outlined the long hot length. She’d never seen a man naked, but if it was like that of animals… Jane shivered. 

“Stay with me tonight.” He whispered, kissing her neck. “I promise I won’t push for more than you are ready to give Jane. But we can assuage a great deal of your worries. Let me hold you and touch you…”

The idea of leaving, of not doing something, anything, to find respite from that aching emptiness that had taken hold of her made Jane sob with need. “Yes” she answered breathless. “Oh Edward I…I ache as if I was hallow.”

“I was made to fill you up, Jane. You need me to complete you.” He explained between kisses to her neck, what little of it he could reach above the collar of her conservative dress. “That ache is your body yearning for mine, and I relish in it.”

She was dizzy with the sensations he was causing and when he flew to his feet and away from her she was shocked at the whimper that issued from her throat. He smiled at her indulgently as he moved towards the door, sliding it shut and then bolting it. He moved towards a wooden panel on the other end and tapped it once. It swung open and she could see his bedchamber revealed behind it. He held out his hand and she stumbled to her feet, feeling clumsy and ungraceful as she nearly staggered into his arms.

He kissed her, his body forcing hers back against the wood of the doorway, his hand bunching the skirts at her waist. His hardness was pressed hot against the front of her now and she could not help answering him with an equally ardent press of her own body. 

“Natural.” He murmured. “Oh Jane your body knows what it wants if your mind does not.” His hand shot out to grasp her roughly between her legs and she cried out, startled, and yet she found herself shamefully grinding against the intrusion. His triumphant smirk turned her knees weak as he continued to work his hand over her skirts. “I want you naked Jane.” He stated bluntly, his eyes dark and burning as he stared long and hard into her own. “Will you let me see you, all of you?”

She nodded, her head moving without her permission, and she blushed again as she realized how completely she was at his mercy. He could ask anything of her now, and morality or sin be damned she would comply.

He pulled her through the passage into his chamber. The fire was lit and the door to the hall open. He moved away from her long enough to close and bolt it too before turning back to her.

She stood in the middle of his bedchamber, unsure and breathing as if she’d run across the grounds, and somehow this seemed to please him greatly. He smiled at her with something close to a predatory gleam and Jane reached behind her to steady herself on the edge of his bedframe.

“Come here Jane,” He ordered. “Stand here before me.”

She moved to comply and he circled her. He embraced her from behind, tilting her neck and nuzzling into it, his long hard body pressed against her back. His hand reached to cup her bosom through the stiff fabric of her dress and she pressed back against his increasing hardness not knowing entirely why she craved the feeling of it so.

He turned them both then so that the length of his dressing mirror was before her and he watched them in the glass as he continued to kiss and nibble her neck, his hands roaming over her clothed form ravenously, “Jane, my Jane,” he whispered. “Are you wet for me Jane?” 

She did not know what he meant and she looked confused as she gazed at herself in the mirror, his hands all over her body and her own right hand hanging at her side, the other reaching back to anchor his head to her neck. 

“Let us find out.” He placed an open mouth bite just behind her ear and Jane reached back with her free hand to pull him harder against her. He chuckled. “Oh I would wager the house you are. I mean to taste you, Jane, have you scream out in shock and pleasure.”

The ties on her dressed loosened and he pulled the cloth down her body and Jane’s blush returned so brilliant she thought she might catch fire. Her stays followed quickly and before she quite realized it she was standing in stockings and shift before him. The thin linen of the undergarment was no impediment to the heat of his hands and within seconds she was naked but for the shoes and wool upon her feet and legs.

His eyes traveled her over several times and Jane shivered at the hungry look in them. She tried to raise her arms to cover herself but he pulled her wrists down and then shifted her to once again face the mirror.

“That is you, Jane. As you were meant to be.” He whispered in her ear from behind. His clothed body, so much larger than hers, framed her nakedness in the glass and Jane breathed in shakily as she stared for the first time at her own body. He let go of her wrists and watched her gaze at herself with something she could only describe as love in his expression. Such at thing was forbidden at Lowood, an impossibly wicked idea, and Jane couldn’t help but reach a shaking hand up to touch her own flesh and see it reflect in the mirror. 

“That’s right.” He whispered and kissed her neck, his own hand sliding for the first time over her naked curves, testing the tininess of her natural waist and smoothing the faint lines caused by the tightness of her stays, rubbing away the evidence of her constriction. “Feel how full your breasts are,” he advised, “how they fit in the palm of your hand.” He demonstrated for her with one hand while the other pushed her legs apart. Her knees gave out at the sensation of touch at that most private of place and he held her up with his own body as he continued to whisper wicked things in her ear and her own hands moved without thought to obey.

He rolled the pink bud of her breast between his fingers and she gasped, copying it with her own hand. “Have you ever touched yourself like this, Jane? In the dark, in secret?”

“I dared not.” Jane whispered. “To be caught so would have meant such a harsh beating.” She could feel the scars of the headmaster’s lash scrape against his clothing as her back rubbed against him and she hung her head in shame. “I had more than my share of those without such inducement.”

He had to have made note of them but he did not comment as he slid his hand further and further between her legs and spread the sinful moister he found there over her thighs. She now knew what he meant when he’d asked if she was wet, and she was, so very. She could feel it rolling down her leg to be caught up in the top of her stockings and she hoped that this was not displeasing to him for she had no control over it.

He seemed to glory in it, however, and he lifted his now coated hand to his mouth and tasted the remnants on his fingers, his eyes holding hers in the mirror. “Put your hand there, Jane.” He instructed, his voice firm and thick. “Feel how desperately your body makes itself ready for me. How much you desire this. It is good and right, Jane, that you feel this for me. It is what God made woman for and you will serve that purpose well my beautiful girl.”

She did as he bade despite how it made her heart hammer uncomfortably in her chest from embarrassment. It was slick and foreign to her yet the act made her feel somehow powerful, the forbidden nature of it, of watching herself touch this part of her that she’d always been told was wicked and the root of all sin, it was exhilarating and she watched in awe as her own hand disappeared between her legs.

“That’s it Jane. Does that feel good my love?”

She nodded, unable to form the words, and he bent down to remove her shoes and stockings and smiled as she shifted to allow it, never removing her exploring fingers. When he stood back up he grasped her wrist and moved her hand to his mouth, sucking at each finger while his other hand went back to gather more of her moisture. When it too was coated he raised it to her lips and she tasted herself on his fingers for the first time.

They held eye contact for a long moment before he withdrew just far enough to toss the cover off the bed and then he was guiding her away from the mirror to lie on the soft mattress. She sank into it and watched as he removed his own clothing. 

His chest was broad and covered in a fine layer of dark hair that grew thicker as it neared his waist and when his body was fully bare before her she stared in wonder as the hardness she had felt was revealed to her. She understood the generalities of what would happen and the idea that that…would go… inside her… Jane’s eyes widened as she took in the size.

“Not tonight my love.” He whispered as he crawled into the bed to lie over her. “I wish to teach you so many things, my Jane. That can wait.”

He kissed her breasts, suckled at every inch of her, and Jane was powerless against the barrage of feelings this enlisted. When he parted her legs to gaze unashamed at her, she turned her face into the pillow to hide how affected she was. Thus she did not see him lower his head to her but at the sensation of his mouth _there_ she sat upright and if not for his hands firmly on her hips she’d have been off the bed. 

He chuckled against her and then turned to his task in earnest. Jane scrambled to clutch at his shoulders, buried her hands in his hair, her heels clawed at the mattress to either of side of him but he kept his ministrations. It was so much, so unexpected, so… Jane heard such sounds it was frightening and it took her long moments to realize they were coming from her own throat. She could not help but arch herself towards him, her back bending and her head thrown back. “Edward,” she managed to plead and then there was something parting her, stretching her, and she felt the fluttering of his tongue against the apex. His fingers moved deeper into her, giving her something to try and fill the hollowness that had consumed her for what felt like eternity, and she clamped down instinctively on them.

He chuckled against her, intensifying the work his mouth was doing, and with a cry Jane’s world exploded.

She was panting into his chest while he kissed the top her head when she came back to him. “Oh Jane, wondrous Jane.” He murmured, his voice light and happy despite the still present hardness that was lying heated against her thigh. “You are magnificent my perfect Jane.” He leaned her back and kissed her, his hands all over her still as if he could not touch her enough.

Her hand reached tentatively out to touch his chest, then slid over his shoulder and he smiled, letting her go enough that he could lie back. He spread himself unashamedly against the white of the sheet and encouraged her with a look to do as she wished.

She enjoyed the rich feel of his skin under her fingers, the hard ripples of muscles from his long days of riding. It had given him strong arms and a powerful body and she blushed at how unashamed she felt in appreciating it. But then she could no longer deny her curiosity and she let her eyes travel to the part of him she knew nothing about.

It was a darker color, a deep brownish red, and it stood out from his body in a way that seemed almost unnatural. When she ventured to touch it, the skin was soft and slid easily over the hardness, ask if asking for her to move it so. She could see a bit of gathered dampness on the tip that felt slick when she spread it. Below it hung a heavy sac, not unlike the bullocks she’d observed on dogs, and when she cupped it, it felt delightfully full in her hand. He closed his eyes at this and arched into her touch, his own hand going to cover hers, squeezing them harder. “Oh yes Jane. Take me in hand my darling one.” He whispered, guiding her other hand back to his hardness so that she had both parts of him in her grasp. He guided her movements with his own hands, his legs splayed shamelessly, and the sounds he made as he taught her how to handle this most private part of him were so wanton she felt that grasping empty feeling return to her. 

Suddenly his body stilled and he gave a groan that sounded more pained than pleasureful and his organ changed in her hand before it erupted and splashed over their joined fingers in several bursts. He clamped her hand harder on it, her fingers seeming to wring more of the milky substance from him before he curled onto his side dislodging her hands. He pulled her closer, kissed her, a seeming tiredness settling over him.

“My glorious Jane.” He whispered. “You wondrous thing…” He smiled, a gentleness and happiness in his look that she was quite unused to seeing on his often sullen face. He kissed her yet again, slowly, and Jane felt her unease at their closeness return. 

“Is this all right, Edward?” She asked, her body moving to try and be as near his as possible almost against her will. “Is this hunger for your touch as it should be?”

“It is, Jane, it is.” He sighed into her hair, pulling it into wilder and wilder formations, as if he thought that be loosening it he could unwind her soul. “It unquestionably is.” He reiterated, his hand ghosting slowly back between her legs. “I think you are not quite finished my lovely girl, given the way you arch.” His tired smile was still wicked and Jane buried her face into his shoulder as his hand mercilessness drew pleasure from her that she did not think she was capable of repeating.

When morning light peaked around the windows and awoke them, Jane knew she should feel embarrassment for her wantonness, and for her continued nakedness, but she could not. Instead there was a sense of calm bone deep in place of her earlier trepidation and she looked over at him, so unashamed in his glorious nakedness Jane knew she had made the right decision if not the moral one. 

“I love you, my Jane.” He said with open appreciation, completely at ease in their sinful state. 

“And I you, my Edward.” She replied softly. “And I you.”


End file.
